On Sunday night in Boston, Dominick Cruz came back from a series of devastating injuries and years on the shelf to defeat bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw and reclaim the title that he never actually lost.
It was an all-timer of a performance from a truly great fighter who has grown more popular in his absence than he ever was as an active competitor. The criticisms of a point fighter who didn’t finish have given way to praise of a technical genius whose defensive savvy is unlike anything the sport has ever seen.
With all of that said, it was a close fight, one of the closest five-round affairs in MMA history.
Aside from the fourth frame, which went to Dillashaw on every scorecard except judge Tony Weeks’, there was a legitimate argument to be made for both fighters in every round.
I scored it 48-47 Dillashaw, with the first two rounds going to Cruz and the last three to Dillashaw, but the range of acceptable and defensible scorecards was wide. The fight wasn’t a robbery either way, and refreshingly, most discussion seems to center on how close it was rather than salty partisans crying robbery.
So how did Dillashaw and Cruz make the fight so close? What went right and wrong for each man?
Let’s start with Cruz. First and foremost, this was the very best version of the former and current champion we’ve ever seen.
The guy who repeatedly got backed up to the fence and was largely out-struck by the diminutive Demetrious Johnson in October 2011 would have been in serious trouble against Dillashaw, but the January 2016 version of Cruz is a different and much more effective animal.
Two distinct improvements in Cruz’s game made the difference for him. First, he was far less prone to moving backwards in straight lines when pressured, which generally kept him off the fence. When Dillashaw did force him back, Cruz did an excellent job of changing directions and immediately getting out.
This had been a problem for him in the past. As good as Cruz’s footwork had been in open space, it seemingly disappeared once his back hit the fence, and he relied on grabbing ahold of the clinch or changing levels for a takedown to break off and create space.
That wasn’t an issue here, as his command of the distance was such that he was able to anticipate Dillashaw‘s pressure and quickly get out of harm’s way.
He rarely got backed up all the way to the fence and was unpredictable with the direction of his movement, which left him less vulnerable to Dillashaw‘s high kicks on the exits.
Second, Cruz’s counters were absolutely on point. In the past, he would evade, evade some more and then pick a spot to throw a single uppercut or straight as his opponent rushed in. Cruz did so far more frequently against Dillashaw, in part because the former champion’s aggressiveness presented opportunities but also because Cruz’s instincts had vastly improved.
Instead of committing only to single counters and then getting himself safely out of the way, Cruz was much more willing to set his feet and throw combinations before exiting. Those sequences of two and three punches caught Dillashaw by surprise and represented the cleanest, most effective offense Cruz produced in the entire fight.
Those were both substantial improvements to Cruz’s game.
He got more bodyweight into his punches than had been the case in the past, too, especially in the later rounds when he seemed to realize Dillashaw was taking over.
That was the good side of Cruz’s game, and it’s what won him the fight. The guy who relied on his wrestling to grind out Johnson would have been soundly out-struck and possibly finished by Dillashaw.
What went wrong? Several things.
First, Dillashaw came close to knocking out Cruz with a head kick on numerous occasions. By my count, Cruz ate at least two clean, shin-to-dome kicks and three or four more that glanced off or landed at the very end of their arc, and any one of them could have been the strike that ended Cruz’s night. Only a ridiculous chin, good spacing and a lot of luck got Cruz out of trouble there.
This speaks to the deeper issue of how to attack Cruz. Dillashaw spammed head kicks because those strikes counter lateral movement. Anything that comes in a circular arc has a wider margin for error than something like a jab or cross that comes on a straight line.
Once Dillashaw adjusted by throwing more kicks to the leg and body instead of concentrating on the head, Cruz had a lot more trouble.
Cruz also had surprisingly little success with his takedowns and transitional offense. FightMetric credited him with four takedowns, but he was never able to hold Dillashaw down for more than a couple of seconds, transition to a dominant position or land strikes as Dillashaw scrambled.
It’s normally the best part of his game, but Dillashaw completely shut him down.
While Cruz had his best possible performance and fought to the limits of his ability, the same isn’t necessarily true for Dillashaw. Two things stand out as particular problems.
First, he relied far too much on high kicks to deter Cruz from moving laterally. I laid out the reasoning for kicks above—circular strikes attack space rather than a point and therefore have greater margin for error against an elusive opponent—but high kicks were a poor choice in the grand scheme of things.
Spamming high kicks was a potentially high-reward strategy, as a clean shot might have meant a knockout, but as kicks go, targeting the head reduces your effective range. A high kick lands cleanly at about the same distance as a cross, while middle kicks go a bit further out and low kicks further still.
Against Cruz, who was always just a bit out of range, low or middle kicks would have been the better strategy.
It’s not a coincidence that once Dillashaw stopped throwing so many high kicks and switched to the legs and body, he started to have more success in the later rounds.
They took away Cruz’s margin for error in his movement, which is exactly why Duane Ludwig asked him to finish his combinations with kicks as Cruz tried to escape, and more importantly, it wore Cruz down with attrition.
Repeatedly attacking with round kicks was the right strategy to attack an elusive opponent, but going with high kicks early was a mistake.
Imagine how much more success Dillashaw might have had late if some of those high kicks in the first and second round had gone to the legs and body instead and piled up damage to tire Cruz and limit his movement.
The second issue was one of inconsistent pressure, especially in the fourth and fifth rounds.
The leg and body kicks were slowing Cruz down, and as he tired, it became easier for Dillashaw to get him to the fence. Once Cruz got there, though, Dillashaw was largely content to throw only one or two shots instead of a flurry.
This probably had something to do with Cruz’s success on the counter early, which made Dillashaw hesitate a bit, but at the end of the fight, Dillashaw simply had to pour it on. Cruz was in something like trouble at various points in the last two rounds, and a long flurry of the kind Dillashaw has thrown in his last few fights might have swayed the judges.
Remember, Weeks scored the last four rounds for Cruz: The difference between winning and losing the fight might have been just one more effective combination when Cruz’s back hit the fence in the fourth and fifth.
It was uncharacteristic of Dillashaw to let him off the hook in that position, but it speaks to how effectively Cruz put the now-former champion off his game.
If that’s what went wrong for Dillashaw, what went right?
His use of round kicks to attack Cruz’s lateral movement was one thing. Moreover, despite the commentators’ remarks about Dillashaw being frustrated and loading up too much, he never really let up on the volume. Missing on strikes failed to dissuade him from continuing to throw, and flustered fighters don’t throw 408 strikes in 25 minutes.
Ironically, this might have hurt Dillashaw with the judges, and it certainly did so with fans who extolled Cruz’s defense.
Despite landing at essentially the same pace as Cruz in every round —if FightMetric is to be believed, Cruz landed 112 to Dillashaw‘s 109—Dillashaw threw over 100 more strikes, and the perception that he was missing a great deal distracted from the fact that his shots were in fact hitting home.
Defense isn’t a judging criterion. Not getting hit is its own reward, not something that judges are supposed to score separately.
With that said, perception matters a great deal, and unless judges were actually counting landed strikes in the midst of an active, high-paced fight, it’s easy to see how that might have hurt Dillashaw.
Cruz’s inability to get anything meaningful going in the wrestling and grappling departments had everything to do with Dillashaw‘s skill in transitions. He never let Cruz establish control and immediately looked to get back to his feet. At one point, he nearly took Cruz’s back against the fence.
In sum, Dillashaw completely shut down Cruz’s best skill set.
The two champions put on the best bantamweight title fight in MMA history, and one of the closest we’ll ever see. While immediate rematches have been a bane of the UFC in the last several years, it’s hard to argue that a fight this competitive wouldn’t deserve one.
Patrick Wyman is the Senior MMA Analyst for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Heavy Hands Podcast, your source for the finer points of face-punching. He can be found on Twitter.
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